Group A: The search-value of memory

The chapter entitled “The Art of Finding” in Clive Thompson’s Smarter than You Think explores the rate at which technology enables us to access information from the internet, one of the most widely-accessible embodiments of our collective memory to which people can both access and contribute information. Thompson offers Harvard psychologist Daniel Wegner’s hypothesis that we participate in “transactive” memory, a phenomenon that posits that we rely on others to assist with the storage of memory, or as Thompson writes, “two heads are better than one” (125). Thompson applies this theory to support his claim that the internet is comparable to the transactive memory process that occurs between spouses, but on a tremendous scale. While I do not doubt the plausibility of transactive memory as a process, I think Thompson is ignoring the reality that modern search engines are not pure, unbiased access points to information.

            In a perfect virtual world, search engines would comb the internet to retrieve the closest match to a user’s search, regardless of how obscure the closest match may be. This is the assumption that Thompson is making in his argument; by positing that search engines are a solution to humans forgetfulness, he is denying the fact that the internet has a selective memory as well, one often dictated by corporate power and economics. Thompson suggests that when computers are responsible for searching their memories instead of humans, “it’s fine. We’re in control, so we can tolerate and even enjoy it” (130). However, as Robert McChesney points out repeatedly in Digital Disconnect, the internet just isn’t that democratic. Companies often pay their way to the top of search engine returns, controlling what we see first, or at all. It is not a coincidence that the majority of searches offer links to the websites of huge corporations and not local blogs.

            While Google has repeatedly denounced its support for “cheating” the search engine system, most large corporations are savvy in the ways of search engine optimization (SEO). SEO can range from minor site tweaks like switching to a more search-friendly name to invasively posting links to a company’s site all over the internet to force its way to the top, what Google calls “black hat strategies.” The manipulation of the search engine results that Thompson argues define our new collective memory is apparent in J.C. Penney’s 2011 domination of search results. Search for everything from “Samsonite carry-on luggage” to “evening dress” consistently revealed Penney’s as the top hit, regardless of actual relevance to the search. This case evidences the detriments of assuming that the internet has the capacity to serve as reliable storage for our memories. As Thompson states earlier in the books, memories are useless without recall and search engines are essentially selling our internet-stored memories to the highest bidder.

            Corporations and intentional SEO play a significant role in determining what we search, or in Thompson’s terms, what we remember. However, search engines are not blameless, either. Google has been known to “punish” websites that defy its search regulations. In theory, this is an attempt to deter companies from cheating their way to the top of search results. In reality, it equally disadvantages users by controlling which sites will not be retrieved first, even if a site is actually the closest match to the search. According to this article, Expedia  was involved in a “paid linking scheme” similar to that of Penney’s, resulting in Google’s push to “manually deflate” the site’s rankings.

Thompson’s argument about technology’s ability to help us remember may be true of technologies in which the content is void of economic motives and are personally operated. For example, the wearable computers discussed in the chapter are useful memory stores because they remain unimpeded by corporate interests. However, I think that there is a distinct weak point in Thompson’s assertion that the internet is a suitable replacement for traditional, interpersonal methods of transactive memory. He is disregarding the fact search engines have a tremendous amount of control over what which information we have access to because of the inherent power structure that exists within the internet, therefore determining what we remember and what lies forgotten on page 8 of our search results.